


When The Top Of The World Falls On You

by shesbreathless



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 16:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17348912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shesbreathless/pseuds/shesbreathless
Summary: The one in which Nico is the one to get hurt for once, but it's not that serious. Until it is.





	When The Top Of The World Falls On You

The noise is what makes the hair on Levi’s arms stand up straight. He furrows his brows and hurries back down the hallway, joining Nico in the kitchen. The only problem is, Nico is lying on the ground, a pained expression on his face.

“What happened?” Levi looks around himself.

There is a pot upside down on the floor, a big puddle of water expanding around it, and Nico lying right in the middle of it. He’s holding his right leg, hands wrapped around his shin, and he’s moaning in pain. There’s also a deep red blush high on his cheeks.

“Did you spill the water and then slip in it?” Levi can’t help the incredulous tone.

Nico scoffs and tries to sit up, hissing and holding his leg tighter. Levi comes closer to help him, slipping his hands under his armpits and hoisting him up to sit on the nearest chair.

He leans down and gently rolls Nico’s ankle, looking for any sings of fractures. He doesn’t seem to find any, but it still looks quite messed up. He smiles to himself and shakes his head, trying to hide his amusement from Nico.

“You need to get this checked out,” Levi says, taking his phone out of his pocket.

“Don’t sound so happy,” Nico rolls his eyes.

Levi sticks his tongue out at him and quickly calls the ambulance. When that’s done, he walks up to the freezer and takes out a pack of instant ice to hold over Nico’s already swollen ankle.

When that’s secure, he stands by Nico’s side and combs his fingers through Nico’s hair, fluffy from the lack of product in it. He can’t help snickering quietly.

Nico sighs, but he’s smiling as well. “Go on, say it.”

“You can’t call me clumsy anymore,” Levi laughs. “Or I’ll hold this up against you forever.”

Nico leans his head back and looks at Levi through half-lidded eyes. “Forever, huh?”

It’s Levi’s turn to blush, and he tugs on Nico’s hair slightly too hard. Nico winces and reaches up to massage the spot, and Levi pats his cheek, before going to fetch some dry clothes. He helps Nico out of the wet ones and into the ones he brought over, before the doorbell rings.

They ride in the ambulance together, since both of their shifts are starting in less than an hour anyway. Levi spends the whole ride joking around with the paramedics and nudging Nico playfully, riding on the high of the comic relief of this whole ordeal.

Nico is still slightly frowning, but his ankle is looking more swollen by the minute, so Levi guesses he must be in pain, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

When they get to the hospital, Nico gets rolled away on a gurney. Levi quickly kisses his cheek and leaves to get changed into his scrubs. The last thing he sees of Nico is the grimace on his face while the nurses handle his leg.

“Guess who I had to pick up off the kitchen floor this morning?” Levi gloats as soon as he sees Taryn walk into the changing room.

“I saw him when I walked in,” Taryn rolls her eyes at Levi’s smiling face.

Levi laughs to himself and happily recounts the whole episode, complete with details and commentary. It might seem mean, but he’s basically been waiting months to see Nico do anything worth making fun of like this, so he’s going to take advantage of it while it lasts.

He’s on the pit today, so Levi skips down the stairs and waits for Dr. Hunt to direct him. He gets assigned to stitching duty, but he doesn’t let that ruin his cheerful mood.

He gets in the zone and chats with the patients, jumping from one bed to the other easily.

Almost an hour passes before he sees some nurses run in the same direction, out of the corner of his eye. He mentally shrugs, figuring that something must be going on in one of the exam rooms, and goes back to the task at hand.

“Page Shepherd!” one of them yells a few minutes after that.

The patient Levi is treating looks around curiously. “What’s all the fuss about?”

Levi follows her line of sight to over his shoulder and along the hallway behind him. There are nurses coming in and out of one room, but they all move aside when Dr. Shepherd comes running in, already giving out orders.

Right behind her is Dr. Link, who leans in to peek into the room. Levi watches his expression go from curious to horrified instantaneously. Almost as if he feels Levi watching him, he turns around and goes even paler when he meets Levi’s eyes.

Levi can feel that something is wrong, and before he realises it, he’s excusing himself with the patient and walking towards the room full of people. He sees Link’s mouth moving, obviously trying to tell him something, but the only thing he hears is the blood rushing in his ears.

When he comes close enough, all he sees is a sliver of black hair before every muscle in his body goes rigid and his mind feels like it just shuts off.

Amelia Shepherd is looking into Nico’s eyes with a small flashlight, the monitors attached to him are all beeping loudly, everybody is screaming, and Levi can’t breathe.

It feels like time has slowed down, or like Levi is walking through water, because Nico being rolled away in his bed looks like it’s in slow motion. Levi can’t believe this is happening right now.

He automatically follows, feet moving without him telling them to, but something stops him before he can go anywhere. That something turns out to be Link holding him back with a hand wrapped around his arm.

Levi can suddenly hear everything again. The loudest noise is his own voice telling Link to let him go.

“You can’t go,” Link tells him. “You won’t be able to help.”

Levi tries to shake his hand off, but that only makes Link wrap his arm around Levi’s chest. Levi soon gives up on fighting him, instead relaxing in his hold. He grabs onto Link’s forearm and turns his head up to look at him.

“What happened?” he asks for the second time that morning.

Link drags him away from the hallway and onto one of the chairs in the waiting room. He doesn’t have to force Levi to sit down, because his legs just give out from under him.

“You stay here while I go find out what’s wrong,” Link looks him in the eye and pats him on the shoulder.

Levi nods and settles his hands in his lap, looking off in the distance. He keeps replaying the image of Nico with wires attached to him, and compares it to his smiling face while he was making fun of him earlier this morning, and he doesn’t understand.

He almost stands up to go looking for Nico by himself, but Link comes back before he can do anything.

“He has a subdural hematoma,” he says, and Levi wants to scream. “He’s in surgery.”

Levi nods, but he’s still having trouble breathing. It keeps getting harder to get the air in and out, and he can’t stop the horrible thoughts going around his head. He feels Link’s hand pushing between his shoulders, forcing him to put his head between his own knees.

“He’ll be okay,” Link says calmly and surely.

Levi knows this, and the change in position does help, but he’s still so confused. He keeps replaying the whole morning in his mind, but he can’t remember Nico telling him he had hit his head when he fell.

He tries to pinpoint a moment in which he could have noticed, no, he should have noticed, because he’s a doctor, and he should know these things, and now Nico is in surgery, and-

“Levi,” Link’s voice breaks through the tornado in his mind. “He will be okay.”

Levi nods again, but this time he means it. He forces himself to breathe deeply and keep all catastrophic thoughts away. After a few minutes, he feels like he can sit up straight again without fainting.

Link is now sitting beside him, twiddling his thumbs. Levi takes a moment to just look at him.

Despite him always being around when Levi goes to meet Nico at work, they’ve never spent that much time together. They don’t know each other well, so the fact that he’s taking the time to make sure Levi is okay while his friend is having brain surgery makes Levi’s heart clench with gratitude.

He realises he’s been staring for too long when Link turns his head and smiles encouragingly at him.

“He’ll be fine,” Levi says, mostly to himself.

-

He’s sitting beside Nico’s bed on an uncomfortable chair, but his head is lying on the mattress in front of him, his arms stretched out and hands tucked up against Nico’s side over the blanket.

He wakes up to the feeling of fingers mapping the side of his face. He leans into it, snuggling into the palm of the hand he’s felt touch him so many times that he recognizes it by now.

Then he remembers that that hand is attached to somebody who is supposed to have just come out of brain surgery.

His eyes fly open and his head snaps up. Nico is looking right back at him, smiling slightly. He has a big bandage stuck to the side of his head, and the wires are still coming out of his hospital gown, but he’s smiling.

“Hello,” Nico says, voice weak.

Levi opens his mouth to answer, but all that comes out is a strangled sound, and then tears are flowing down his face. He starts sobbing and snorting unattractively, but he can’t help himself.

He had managed to hold himself together before, while everything was still going on, but now that he knows that Nico is perfectly fine, he has to let it all out.

“I’m okay,” Nico whispers, patting Levi’s shoulder.

“I know,” Levi wails, grabbing his hand and holding it close to his face.

Nico chuckles and focuses his gaze on something over Levi’s shoulder. Levi turns around slightly and sees Link leaning against the door, looking at them with an amused expression on his face.

He nods at him and Levi sobs some more, turning back to Nico. They both laugh at him, but he couldn’t care less right now. He can hear Link explaining to Nico what had happened, but he’s not paying attention to that.

Instead, he focuses on trying to stop crying, but every time he manages to calm down, another wave of relief makes his eyes water.

“Babe,” Nico calls out to him when Link leaves.

Levi breathes and stops sobbing for long enough to look Nico in the eye. He’s still smiling gently, and Levi loves him a ridiculous amount.

“Don’t you dare ever do that again,” Levi warns, even waving a menacing finger at him.

“I’ll try my best,” Nico laughs, then winces.

Levi dries the remaining tears from his cheeks and stands up, carefully climbing into the bed. Nico wraps one arm around him and he leans his head on Nico’s shoulder.

“You didn’t tell me you hit your head,” Levi whispers.

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Nico shrugs.

Levi lifts his head to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “You’re banned from thinking.”

Nico goes along with it and nods, pulling Levi back down against him and hugging him tightly. Levi sighs and hugs him back, dropping a kiss on Nico’s neck.

Levi is probably going to pick this argument again when Nico is feeling better, and there is still a pot laying upside down on the floor back at Nico’s apartment, and the image of Nico lying motionless in a hospital bed still won’t leave the back of Levi’s eyelids, but right now everything is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mix of two different prompts from anons on Tumblr: sick Nico and Levi finally having the chance to not be the clumsy one in the relationship for a while!
> 
> The title is from "Top Of The World" by The All-American Rejects, and the pun is absolutely intended lmao
> 
> If you liked this, let me know with a comment or hit me up on [Tumblr](https://shesbreathless.tumblr.com/)!


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